


Highwire

by Vehemently



Category: Alias, mi-5/spooks
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-06
Updated: 2013-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-07 15:51:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vehemently/pseuds/Vehemently
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during the summer Sydney Bistow went missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Highwire

When she introduced herself, in the Quaintest Pub in All Britain, she said her name was Adela Quested. Will managed to keep a straight face - okay, he had never read the book, but any guy who had tried to get laid in 1989 had sat through at least part of _A Passage to India_ \- and called himself Sam Clemens. Miss Quested made a noise in her throat that was not approval, and eyed the rest of the pub’s clientele.

They sat and chatted about stupid things, why you’re allowed to yell in Parliament, why judges wear funny wigs. She was surprised at his understanding of the ministry system, and he narrowly avoided telling her, Oh, I’m an investigative journalist, that’s what I do. It was not what he did any longer. He turned the conversation to James Bond, out of spite.

She was struggling to keep the conversation light, and shrugging her sweater up around her ears, when Will sighted the person who mattered. He was tall and craggy and drifted expertly up to them, a slow orbit of sociality, except that conversations bounced off him and didn’t make a dent. He gave a courteous smile to a gaggle of women, and turned it off the moment he was out of their view. He came to their table and opened his mouth.

“You must be George Lazenby,” said Will, and Miss Quested looked like she was going to swallow her tongue.

“No,” said Craggy, with that fake-nice manner, like a press secretary saying his rehearsed speech, even if it isn’t in answer to the question you just asked. “Tom Quinn. You are?”

Will could play this game all evening, “Ray Chandler.”

“He was English,” interjected Miss Quested, sourly.

“Okay then.” He chuckled. “Gary Cooper.”

“Reluctant hero, are you?” A sneer was the first genuine expression Quinn had shown. “Solitary lawman doing what must be done?” He gave a low, hateful laugh and propelled himself off his barstool. “Let’s go, then.”

Quinn pushed his way to the door with agility, but not a lot of pleasantry. Will tailed behind him, and glanced over his shoulder at Miss Quested. “A threesome?” he asked her.

“Elevensome,” said Miss Quested, when they were outside. She flipped down the collar of her sweater to show the microphone, and then gestured at the black van across the street.

“Why send one guy, when ten will do?” Will let himself be stuffed into the back of a sedan. Craggy Quinn sat beside him, dour and silent, and Miss Quested was in front. The car took off, and Will had a brief surreal moment of thinking the car was driving itself, before he remembered how England drove wrong-sided. Just as well he was a passenger. Miss Quested looked at him in the rearview as if he were naked, and syphilitic.

“You’re not going to put a sock over my head and drive in circles?” Will asked.

Quinn said, “No, Mr Tippen,” just as Miss Quested muttered,

“We’re subtle, not paranoid.”

The building they drove to looked sort of like a museum, or a bank. Until they got to the secured garage, at which Quinn produced code words, documents to be scanned, and recited Will’s social security number. The guy was practically smirking as they entered the garage and parked the car.

“Look, we’ve brought you here as a courtesy, Mr Tippen.” Quinn climbed out of the car and waited, hands in his pockets, while Miss Quested came around to Will’s side. “One agency to another. Some things, I’m afraid, we will have to insist on.”

The handcuffs were made of something plastic, not like the American kind. Will let them shackle his fists behind his back and commenced the perp walk up to the MI-5 office. “Kinky,” he said. Miss Quested outdid her namesake in accusatory glances. Quinn raised one perfunctory eyebrow and led them to the elevator.

The main office of the internal security service of the United Kingdom was depressingly like the L.A. office of the CIA, only more brightly lit and with a “modern” layout of transparent walls. In L.A., Will had gotten used to sitting at his little station, twitching in a row like a panel of Mathletes; the MI-5 office felt more like an ant farm.

A stylish black man popped up as they passed the revolving security door. “Zoe!” he called, and Miss Quested blushed a little.

“Not now, Danny,” she muttered, and took Will’s elbow to drag him through the door. Danny turned his head like a model, noted the handcuffs over Will's fists, and murmured,

“Kinky.”

“That’s what I said,” said Will, but Zoe shanghaied him away, stomping fast down the hall.

“No followers?” Quinn asked, behind them.

“No Tom,” said Danny. He tried to pull Quinn aside. “Listen, the boss has something going on --“

“Put him in the conference room, yeah?” said Quinn, and Zoe jerked at Will’s arm.

“No,” Danny said, “I’m trying to tell you --“

But Zoe had pulled open the conference room door, and everyone shut up and looked at the people inside.

The head of MI-5 looked kind of like Ernst Blofeld, Will thought, and since he’d seen the briefing picture, had been unable to think of him as anything else. Less gleeful, and he wouldn’t know what to do with a death ray or a white cat, but he had that supercilious dislike that short people conveyed by raising their chins and looking down their noses. He was wearing a very expensive suit, and sweating in it. The man sitting next to him was why.

The size of him, his big blocky shoulders, made Jack Bristow an automatically reassuring guy, if he was on your side. He always seemed a little awkward in suits, his neckties like broken nooses and his shoes too practical for a business executive. He swung around in his chair and said, “Good evening, Will,” as if they were at their desks in L.A.

Danny grumbled, “Told you so.” Quinn took a breath, and came into the room past Will, expressionless. He took a chair next to the MI-5 director without asking or volunteering anything.

Quinn’s boss flared his nostrils dramatically and asked, “I presume this is a little joke of yours, Jack?”

“Call it a training mission, Harry.” Jack gave that little flat smile that wasn’t really a smile, and rested his hand on a closed folder on the table. “Well done, Will.”

Will chuckled. “Even though I arrived in handcuffs?” Zoe, behind him, was taking them off just then. She threw them on the table in front of her boss and took a seat beside Quinn.

“Even so,” said Jack, and returned to business. “Passports. These three names I flagged myself, and I’d like to know why you didn’t notify me when one of them passed customs day before yesterday.” Jack swatted the photostats on the table. Quinn glanced at them as if disinterested, and let Zoe pick them up. Will didn’t need to look; he was the one who had procured the second passport, back Before, in his stupid days, when he couldn’t have fathomed dyeing your hair pink and changing your identity. It had been nine weeks, and she wasn’t any closer to being found. Will swallowed, and watched Jack’s sure handling of the room.

“We’ve known each other for a long time, Harry,” said Jack, and Director Blofeld replied,

“Quite.”

It was meaningless to Will, and the two men sat and waited each other out, both sour and simmering like beer turned to vinegar. It was going to be a very long wait.

“I talked to her,” said Quinn suddenly. He put his elbows on the table and faced Jack with bland professionalism. “The name came up flagged, so I talked to her. Routine security sweep, I called it. She asked me to keep a secret and I did.”

That was all from Quinn. His gray eyes went empty and he let Jack look at him.

Will couldn’t stand the silence. “You’re the one who worked with her? On that thing four years ago?”

“Yeah,” said Quinn, and didn’t look away from Jack.

Director Blofeld asked, “You deleted the flag from our mainframe, did you?”

“Yeah,” said Quinn.

“You knew,” marveled Will, “You knew we were going bananas looking for her, concerned for her welfare, and you’re stonewalling us?”

“Yeah,” said Quinn.

Jack stirred. His eyes were narrow slits, his mouth another thin line in his weathered face. “You know she is my daughter.”

At that Quinn glanced away, as if he’d finally found a sense of shame. Zoe was staring at him, and then at the photos, and then at Jack. The other one, Danny, came around for a look. “She wasn’t using that name,” said Quinn.

There was that way Jack had, where you knew he was about a second away from reaching across the table and snapping a guy’s neck one-handed. Will fumbled for a distraction. “You gave her British papers?”

Clearly, Quinn hadn’t gotten the memo about Jack’s slow boil. He rubbed his palms absently, features neutral, and refused to answer. Director Blofeld put his hand to his head as if it suddenly pained him.

“Listen, Quinn, this is stupid,” pleaded Will, fists tight. “We just want to know she’s all right. Her handler is off in someplace crazy like Stalingrad or Kampala, looking for her. We just want to talk to her, see how she’s doing.”

Quinn gave them his rough good looks, and nothing else. Zoe, beside him, fidgeted uncomfortably and began to slide her chair away from the table. Director Blofeld cleared his throat.

“I think you’d better tell him,” said the boss, raising his eyebrows as if this were some kind of indulgence. “Or else he might throw that table at you, Tom.”

“Look,” said Quinn. “I promised her I wouldn’t. She begged me.”

“You’re a martyr _and_ a fool,” growled Jack. “Go ahead and be one or the other, but kindly keep Sydney out of it when you indulge both at once.” Jack stood abruptly, and Will was careful to stand behind him. At any rate, out of his way.

“I’m sorry,” said Quinn, and appeared to mean it.

“Don’t be.” Jack lowered his head. “Marshall, have you got it all?” Will didn’t have two-way access. Jack listened to the answer from afar. “Good. Thank you.”

He straightened his awkward suit and stalked past Will to the doorway. He turned just before leaving, and told Director Blofeld, “You might consider keeping tighter control of your agents.” Somewhere, Jack had found his reptilian cool again. Not that it was any more comforting, but at least it wouldn’t come to fighting. “Harry, the boy gave her your sister’s passport number.”

Director Blofeld raised his chin, and looked down his nose. He lad to lean very far back in his chair to do it properly. Zoe and Danny stared. Quinn did not even blush.

“And you,” and Jack pointed a finger at Quinn, like a gun. “stay out of my way.”

Quinn gazed impassively at the back of Jack’s head as he stalked out, practically daring anyone in the agency to stop him. Will came to the doorway and grinned, and opened his fist to show them he transponder he’d been clutching for an hour. It was smaller than a matchbox; Marshall knew his oats. He couldn’t resist waving goodbye.

“I’ll tell her hello, when we find her,” he said, and hurried to follow Jack. Behind him came a bark of sarcastic laughter that cut off almost immediately.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Shrift's crossover spy porn challenge, in 2003.


End file.
